Vittorio Messori offers this very moving reflection on Jewish-Christian relations that is way off the media's beaten path, and for good reason.
Between Jews and Christians:
A family quarrel - and a mystery
by VITTORIO MESSORI
Translated from
January 19, 2009
These days, torrents of words are gushing forth about the visit of Benedict XVI to the Rome Synagogue, erected there where the Jewish Ghetto arose, oriented along the Tiber almost as though in a direct challenge to the largest Basilica in the world, built over the tomb of one Simon of Galilee.
A pious Jew, he was, an obscure fisherman on the Lake of Galilee, who was renamed Kephas - Peter, the rock - by one Jesus of Nazareth, someone who, historically, was just another itinerant Jewish preacher in the time of the Second Temple, one of so many who claimed to be the Messiah awaited by Israel. In short, the usual fanatic, apparently visionary.
And one who was punished with the most shameful of deaths, reserved only for slaves. A life which may have been lost to oblivion, had not his followers - all circumcized Jews faithful to the Torah - started to proclaim, with intrepid hardheadedness, that the rabbi who ended up crucified, had risen from the dead and was truly the Anointed One, the Christ, pre-announced by the prophets.
That small band of Jews succeeded to convince other Jews, first in Jerusalem, and then in the synagogues of the Diaspora, where they went in order to announce that Israel's millennial wait had been fulfilled.
The best presentation to his fellow Jews was made by an enthusiastic believer, another son of Abraham, Saul who would be called Paul, who, in order to make things clear, immediately informed them that he had been "circumcized on the eighth day, an Israelite, from the tribe of Benjamin, a Jew, and son of Jews".
He, too, like Peter, ended up killed by the pagan rulers of Rome, and over his tomb, too, a giant basilica was built.
If, from all Europe, during all the MIddle Ages, crowds of pilgrims came chanting psalms and in penitence to the city on the Tiber, it was to venerate the tombs of those two 'pillars of the faith' - both of them Jewish to the very marrow.
In the long run, the pagans did not bother to distinguish among the Jews, dividing them into one group who had added that exotic Christ to their faith, and those who rejected Christ. They considered such distinction as nothing more than boring internal disputes, theological quarrels such as frequently seen in any religion.
Benedict XVI, I read in one account, had a small Bible with him which he left in the car when he got off in the Jewish quarter. Well, of the 73 books that make up the text on which the faith of the Church is founded, only Luke, and perhaps Mark, among the authors, were not sons of Israel.
These days, there is a preference to replace the designations 'Old' and 'New' Testaments with 'First' and 'Second' Testaments, in order to underscore the continuity and homogeneity of the Biblical message.
But why are we recalling all this, and much more which we could add? Why do so many commentators, especially these days, seem to forget that what we have here is a family history which is also a religious mystery?
It is a story of faith, and faith alone. And the secular layman can only see - and often, in a misleading way - its external contours.
This is a confrontation among the sons of Abraham, sons by birth or by adoption. This 'familial' aspect explains the harshness that has been present on both sides: the Acts of the Apostles and Paul's Letters show how severe the reaction was to the Christian 'heretics' from official Judaism.
And who does not know that the harshest differences are those between close kin, and that the most fearful wars are civil? 'Fratelli, coltelli'!
[an Italian saying which means, "Brothers = daggers drawn].
For two thousand years, Christianity has been the faith of billions by now in a Messiah of Israel announced and awaited for two thousand years before he was born, by the people of Israel who did not all - some did and were the first Christians - recognize him when he came.
For the nth time, the analyses and opinions expressed these days generally do not seem to be aware that the question of Jewish-Christian relations goes beyond the categories of history, of politics, of culture.
The relationships within the Judaeo-Christian world are not 'problems' that can be faced with the usual categories: they are - and let us call it so - a Mystery.
A word used by Saul/Paul, in his letter to the Romans: "I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not become wise (in) your own estimation: a hardening has come upon Israel in part, until the full number of the Gentiles comes in, and thus all Israel will be saved, as it is written" (11,25-26).
In any case, even those who are 'hardened', are "beloved because of the patriarchs. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (11,28-29).
The knowledge of political analysts and intellectuals is completely inadequate in this respect - the limited knowledge of those who are not aware that the confrontation between Jews and Christians does not belong to history but to the theology of history.
Solvitur in Excelsis! - it can be solved at the highest level. This is an enigma, too often painful, which can be explained only in Heaven, to echo the words of that great philospher and great Christian Jean Guitton.
If I were a Jew, I too might ask myself every day - how is it that an original band of Twelve Jews were able to spread a message so powerful and convincing that even early on, the faith they founded on the person of a fellow Jew who was unique to them for being the Son of God, far outgrew the faith they had been born in? Why are there 1.2 billion Catholics (and possibly 2 billion Christians in all) today, compared to 14 million Jews? {Not forgetting that when Cardinal Ratzinger was once asked what made him so certain of Christian hope, he replied, "The lives of the saints, and the survival of the Jewish people".]
Before Benedict XVI revised the Good Friday prayer for the Jews, I had no occasion to read Paul's Letter to the Romans. And not having been particularly interested in the Bible before getting to 'know' Benedict XVI, I was not aware that 'Romans' is considered Paul's masterpiece, his most important theological legacy, "a work of massive substance, presenting a formidable intellectual challenge while offering a breathtaking theological and spiritual vision".
Its subject has been described as "the gospel of the justification and salvation of Jew and Greek alike by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, revealing the uprightness and love of God the father".
But Paul presents his teaching from the point of view of someone who was born, raised, educated and thoroughly versed as an observant Jew, which makes his appeal to the reason of his fellow Jews to accept Christ extraordinarily powerful. Even a cursory reading of it brings a vivid thrill as though one were actually listening to him!(Forgive the enthusiasm of a newbie who has little acquaintance with the Bible!)
I had thought I had cried enough sentimental tears while reading and translating Vittorio Messori's piece. Then along comes this essay by the Spanish journalist Jose Luis Restan to bring on a fresh spate, but this time for his remarkably empathetic approach of reporting the visit to the synagogue as it might well have been, at least in part, from the point of view of the Holy Father.
Shalóm for always
by José Luis Restán
Translated from
January 19, 2010
In 2,000 years, only two Popes have entered a synagogue in Rome.
One was Polish, among whose classmates and playmates there had been many Jews, some of whom remained his friends until he died.
The other is German, from the same land that gave rise to that terrible ideology that sought to extirpate the sons of Abrhaam from the face of the earth.
Last Sunday, Papa Ratzinger wrote a new page in history when he came to the Rome Synagogue as the humble successor of the Jew, Peter of Galilee.
He came and looked around with those kind but penetrating, almost childlike eyes. He looked around, knowing full well that somehow, even if unjustly, a big part of the atavistic resentments in the Jewish world against the Catholic Church is laid on his person.
He, who has devoted his best intellectual energies to profoundly examining the Jewish root of the Christian faith, who more than anyone else has scrutinized the venom of Nazi ideology - he is aware that he will stir up all the bugbears,
[if only because he is German!], especially after revoking the excommunication of the bishops ordained by Mons. Lefebvre, and after promulgating the heroic virtues of Pius XII.
He knows that every line of his address would be scrutinized under a magnifying glass - but he is not one to indulge in petty considerations. He deals with an open heart.
He knows that this moment was not made possible by human maneuvers and wiles, but by the
Hesed of God, his mercy which established a history in which Jews and Christians cannot be without each other.
First was his silent homage to the victims of the Shoah: as in Auschwitz, and as in Yad Vashem. "How can we forget the tears and desperation of those men, women and children, their faces, their names?"
When, in the Synagogue, a few survivors of the Holocaust from the Rome ghetto were presented to him, he rose to his feet and applauded them. It was a gesture that broke the ice of ages. Some of the survivors broke into tears, but this time, of joy.
Benedict repeated to them what he had said in Auschwitz: "The rulers of the Third Reich wanted to crush the entire Jewish people”, and, essentially, “by wiping out this people, they intended to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that remain eternally valid".
He also underscored the sorrow of the Church about her own children who, through their failings, had provoked the wounds of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism, and asked that such wounds may be healed for always.
He knew that they expected him to refer to the wartime actions of Pius XII and the Church with regard to the Nazi persecution of the Jews, and he did not dodge it.
"Many, including Italian Catholics, sustained by their faith and by Christian teaching, reacted with courage, often at risk of their lives, opening their arms to assist the Jewish fugitives who were being hunted down, and earning perennial gratitude. The Apostolic See itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way".
He would not stir up new controversy, but stated, freely and humbly, what the Church considers to be the right thing.
And now, the Pope could enter into that which is close to his heart: the common legacy, drawn from the Law and the Prophets, which establishes the link between the Church and the Jewish people at the level of their very identity.
He focuses his reflection on the Ten Commandments, "a guiding star of faith and morals for the people of God, and also enlightens and guides the path of Christians", and "a great code of ethics for all humanity".
He states that the Decalogue could lead to many fields of collaboration and common witness for Catholics and Jews: re-awaken an openness to the one God in a society that is making new golden calves; to protect human life against all injustice and abuse; to promote the sanctity of the family based on the reciprocal Yes of a man and a woman.
And he recalls that "all of the Commandments are summed up in the love of God and loving-kindness towards one’s neighbor" and "urges Jews and Christians to exercise, in our time, a special generosity towards the poor, towards women and children, strangers, the sick, the weak and the needy".
He ends by invoking the same 'Shalom' that he had written in the note he left at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem last May: “Send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family; stir the hearts of those who call upon your name, to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion.”
And so, evening fell on the eternal city which has seen Christians and Jews together for two thousand years. As testified to by the exhibit of Jewish designs showing their participation in the coronation of the 18th-century Popes, inaugurated by Benedict XVI and Rabbi Di Segni at the Jewish Museum of Rome.
But perhaps never before have the Jews and Christians of Rome looked at each other, recognizing each other as brothers, as they did on Sunday. SHALOM!
I like Riccardo Pacifici's definition of Shalom, in an interview he gave soon after the Pope's visit, saying Shalom was "the last of the Berakha (Benedictions), which indicates the highest and purest aspiration, namely, spiritual integrity and serenity in one's perfect consciousness of God".
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 20/01/2010 02:28]